Mortal Kombat Demo 3D Hands-On: What You’ll Get On Tuesday

Sometimes, life is about the simple pleasures. The contented cooing of a sleepy puppy. The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. The sickening crunch of Scorpion stomping your rib cage while an X-ray view displays the internal damage in real time. In 3D.

Yes, friends. I have played the Mortal Kombat PSN demo, and it is good. Comprised of four characters and two stages, the demo is a meaty preview of what to expect when the full game hits PS3 on April 19th (April 21st in the EU). PlayStation Plus subscribers are getting early access this coming Tuesday, March 8th (March 9th in the EU) and it’ll be delivered directly to your PS3 as long as you enable Automatic Downloads in your XMB settings. All other PSN users will be able to download the demo on Tuesday, March 15th.

The demo comes with four playable fighters: Johnny Cage, Mileena, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero. Fan-favorite Scorpion is nastier than ever, packing his trademark throwing spear (“Get over here!”) and a wicked new sword, while rival ninja Sub-Zero forges weapons from ice and shatters internal organs with a touch. Hollywood prima donna Johnny Cage hits below the belt, and sai-wielding mutant assassin Mileena makes no effort to hide her gleaming five-inch fangs. You’ll also get two environments: The Living Forest and The Pit, complete with its gruesome stage fatality.

Mortal Kombat’s stereoscopic 3D viewing mode is exclusive to the PS3, and I was lucky enough to try it on a massive 60’’ 3D Sony Bravia. Stereoscopic 3D lends an impressive sense of grandeur and scope — the environments seem to stretch on into infinity but don’t distract from the fighting. “We didn’t want 3D to change the basic mechanics or complicate things needlessly,” Mortal Kombat creative director and series co-creator Ed Boon told me. “Our 3D implementation makes the characters pop from the background a little more, and helps you focus on them.” By rendering the fighters in 2D for its stereoscopic 3D mode, Mortal Kombat’s action remains visible even if you’re not wearing 3D glasses. This is a handy detail if you’re playing with a group on a 3D TV and find yourself short of 3D glasses — everyone will be able to play and watch whether they wear 3D glasses or not. If you’re not wearing glasses, the 3D backgrounds will look a bit blurry but the characters will appear crisp and clean.

Gameplay-wise, the Mortal Kombat demo is loaded with special attacks, combos, juggles, and ultra-powerful X-ray attacks that will leave your opponents reeling (and your stomach heaving). The action is fast and satisfying, with a 2D, side-scrolling feel that’s much closer in spirit to MKII or MK3. A standout example lies in the glorious return of the turn-around kick, which is a powerful juggle combo starter where you jump over an opponent and kick after you clear his shoulder. Judging by my hands-on time, turn-around kicks — a staple of the classic games but downplayed in later entries — are back in full force. According to Boon, this is by design. “We know turn-around kicks are an essential ingredient this time,” Boon told me. With a little practice, I was able to easily perform my signature Scorpion combo from Mortal Kombat II: Turn-around jump kick, teleport punch, spear throw followed by an uppercut or combo for an easy 25-30% damage. Not bad, but I’m sure some of you can do much better!

The Mortal Kombat demo supports two modes: One-on-one Versus battles (the final game supports two-on-two tag battles as well), and a short single-player Ladder mode. Protip: Completing that Ladder mode in the PSN demo unlocks a jaw-dropping video montage of the final game, complete with glimpses of new fatalities, returning characters, and impressive new stages. I won’t spill any secrets, but consider that video to be required viewing.

Oh, and one more thing: The “Toasty” guy is back. I’ve seen him! Have any questions about the features or feel of the upcoming PS3 Mortal Kombat demo? I’ll be delighted to provide further information, just ask away in the comments.

Yeah I’m stalking it too. I hope it gets posted after midnight or something. Been an MK fan since the first game (I was a teenager then lol). I used to play the beta arcade versions when they hit the game rooms (Arcades).

Its March 8th, 12:22 am… Where is my Mortal Kombat already!?! Is this release eastern or western time? Its 12 am here on the east coast, do i have to wait till 3 when its 12 on the west? I tried to go to bed but it just aint happening…

. PlayStation Plus subscribers are getting early access this coming Tuesday, March 8th (March 9th in the EU) and it’ll be delivered directly to your PS3 as long as you enable Automatic Downloads in your XMB settings.

My automatic download is set for 2-4am and it’s wasn’t there this morning.

They really need to get this stuff worked out so that the content is updated in the morning instead of late afternoon. It’s just bush league. With every update they release late. They might as well tell us that the updates will be on wed.instead of tues. By the time the update is pushed to me it will 4 or 5 pm on the 8th. The day will already be over. LAME!!! I had a perfectly good day set aside to play this game and it will now be wasted doing honey do list crap.

I agree with you guys. It’s 10:30am in Chicago and still no demo. I set my auto-download for 3 diff times and got nada. I mean I can get a game at a midnight release at a GameStop. Or at 10am when they open that day. So I seriously, how hard is it to slap a demo on your network in a prompt fashion? I guess pretty hard. Then on top of it, the plus users only get a week of exclusivity? I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to renew my P-Plus at this point.

I dont usually stalk the Playstation Store for anything but i am under the impression that the Mortal Kombat Demo may not be available till at least 7pm Eastern Time, 4pm for the west coast. Thats when its officially March 9th in England… From what i understand they are suppose to be having site maintenance for the Europe Store around that time as well. Probably prepping the servers for the mass downloads about to occur.

@130 it has nothing to do with being babies. sony needs a set update time on their store. just as an example micosofts marketplace is updated midnight (in seattle) which being in the central us happens for me at 3 am. i never stay up that late but having that assurance that when i wake up everything will be there is alot better than not knowing.

well people don’t have to cry about a game thats not out the hour of the day it’s released lol seriously.. OMG MORTAL KOMBATS NOT OUT AT MIDNIGHT! OMG I HATE PLAYSTATION PLUS!! O yea Sony’s really screwing you guys..

Well, it’s not playstation plus thats a problem. I regularly (And got updated today, as a matter of fact) get push updates from DCUO and patches from other games so I’m quite happy with the service. Honestly, I think it has to do with the dev gettin the demo ready for playstation network. :P

Thanks for the details. I find mortal kombat very very VERY addictive and bloody, I was excited they came out with this game to make up for DC Universe. I have Mortal Kombat vs. DC but not really fun when they cutted out the gore, THAT’S THE POINT OF MORTAL KOMBAT!! RIPPIN SKULLS AND KILLING PEOPLE!!!!! FATALITY!!!

Hey guys, I finally got to check it out. Here are my impressions.. I think it’s going to be a great game, although the demo was very short unfortunately. I only had a few small complaints and those were, mileena’s outfit being way too slutty. She almost looks like a transvestite, and i’m no prude. But my girlfriend’s exact quote was “now that’s unecessary, she looks like a tranny” Then it hit me.. she does! I understand there are other costumes, but the slutty ones need to go. They should not be default, i’m not 17 anymore. Also the character selection screen music and overall look and reminds very much of mortal kombat deception or deadly alliance.. which isn’t that bad I guess.. It’s got that mk deception guitar (or was it deadly alliace) the game almost feels like an advanced version of one of those games (da, deception).. especially now that they are adding the krypt and all, which I loved. But I guess I just expected it to feel.. totally different, in mirror matches, it’d be nice if the characters said something different to eachother, instead of just repeating the exact quote, Overall fun to see.. but short.

My last comment is, it is very polished, and I am more excited after sitting down and playing this demo. I do feel that this is a very advanced version of “MK deception” with an mk2/mk3 theme. But that is okay with me, I actually really enjoyed that game. I’m just glad to have a good mortal kombat game coming out with some of the 2d mechanics added back in. This was definitely more fun playing than just watching the youtube videos.. The graphics are great in real-time. I Can’t wait.

I just got done playing the demo at a friends house and it was breath-taking. The only problem was I could not do a single fatality. I have no problem doing them in the other mk games, so can anyone tell me the command for any of them. Thank you!